Schools warn of abuse risk from IT database

Misuse of an electronic database holding sensitive information on 11 million children in England could lead to millions of breaches of security each year, it is claimed today. Privacy campaigners and independent schools have warned of the "enormous" potential for abuse of the huge IT system to be launched next year.

In a letter to the Guardian, they appeal to the government to reconsider "this hugely expensive and intrusive scheme". The Guardian revealed on Monday how the system would be open to at least 330,000 people as part of an effort to prevent deaths such as that of Victoria Climbié by helping children's services work together.

Critics fear it will breach the right to privacy and are concerned about security. It will be accessible through the internet with a two-part authentication.

But today's letter, signed by representatives of the Independent Schools Council, Action on Rights for Children, the Foundation for Information Policy Research, the Open Rights Group and Privacy International, says that the problems of "a potentially leaky and inadequate system" must be solved before the plan goes further. It claims that evidence from Leeds NHS trust last year suggested that in one month staff logged 70,000 incidents of inappropriate access. "On the basis of these figures, misuse of the ContactPoint system could run to 1,650,000 incidents a month."